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On the night of Wednesday October 16th, the US Congress came together to raise the debt ceiling and pass legislation that would fund the government, allowing it to reopen. This last-minute decisions that avoided default on the US national debt prevented a major economic disaster. After many days of great tension, US politicians found a compromise and arrived at a temporary resolution. Ultimately, they exhibited leadership by putting aside their parochial differences and allowing the best interest of their nation and the world to prevail.

We have seen this pattern of leadership before. Five years ago, in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the US and the global financial system faced meltdown. The situation threatened to trigger a crisis greater than the 1929 Great Depression. When the gravity of the circumstances became apparent, the US Congress collaborated with the executive branch to enact unprecedented measures and the authorities of many countries came together to prevent the worst. Admittedly, they took actions that were not popular and are criticized to this day. But without the leadership they demonstrated, the pain endured by people in the US and all over the world would have been much more severe.

True, in both instances significant leadership was at play. But is this really the kind of leadership that we want, or need?

In recent years, we have watched leadership emerge only in the eleventh hour — just before it is too late. This pattern is inefficient and unsustainable. It fails to account for the long view and offers imprecise, last-minute fixes to complex problems. This international group of students calls for a form of leadership that has the courage to look beyond the next deadline, past the next earnings report. The stability and wellbeing of future generations are in the balance. The leadership we need would have prevented us from getting this close to the brink in the first place. We want our leaders to be competent not only when disaster is upon us, but to completely avoid disasters that are undoubtedly preventable.

Well before the financial crisis erupted, experts expressed serious concerns about the problems that caused it. Some pointed emphatically to the danger of having certain countries running huge current account deficits while others were accumulating large surpluses and foreign exchange reserves. Others expressed alarm about the fiscal deficits that were being incurred by the US and other important economies. Others were fearful that an accommodative US monetary policy, having been sustained for too long, was encouraging excessive risk-taking within financial markets. Others demonstrated with sound statistical analysis that huge bubbles had developed in the real estate markets of the US and other countries. And yet, no significant corrective actions were taken.

US political leaders knew for many months that the US government would need to stop the provision of essential services to the American public and that a default on US debt could trigger total collapse in the Credit of the US. They have known all along that failure to properly address these issues could lead to catastrophe in the global financial system. Knowing this, US political leaders still pushed the economy to the brink and as America and the world watched in horror as political and ideological divisions blocked an agreement until the last minute. Although the matter has been resolved temporarily, the ordeal incurred heavy economic and human costs.

In these examples, eleventh-hour leadership may have done the trick in averting major crises, but citizens deserve better. People elect officials with the expectation that they will have the foresight, competence, and courage to protect them from problems that are preventable. Those individuals must put the collective good before their short-term political interests and popularity. This is what responsible leadership is about. It is even more important today. The amazing interdependence and connectivity that we enjoy also imply that ill-advised political decisions that shock one country can spread and damage people all over the world. Everything — every economy, every political system, every nation — is interdependent and interconnected.

We need to adopt a new pattern of responsible leadership. We need our leaders to be proactive, visionary and steadfast, willing to take the long view. We need leadership now, not just when crisis strikes.

The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the position of the United States Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.